The Left Block (BE) in the Porto Municipal Assembly sent questions to the House about the participation of the municipality in the police charge this morning against protesters for the right to housing.
© Gabriela Carvalho/Flickr/BE
15/10/2026
by
Lusa
O Left Block (BE) in the Porto Municipal Assembly today sent a set of questions regarding the participation of the municipality in the decisions regarding the police load this morning on protesters for the right to housing.
The municipal group, composed of Susana Constante Pereira, wants to know “what contacts, requests or communications” existed between the municipality, the Municipal Police (PM) and the PSP before the intervention, from which 39 injured resulted, two of them serious, among the protesters, to which a police added, in the incident in Praça D. João I.
Susana Constante Pereira questions whether the intervention was requested by the House or by its president, Pedro Duarte (PSD/CDS-PP/IL), and if so “on what basis”.
“ Who determined the participation of the PM in the operation, which concrete instructions were transmitted to him and what acts were committed by his agents before, during and after the police charge? ", can be read in the request.
Bloquists want to know if the PM participated “in coercive actions”, and in which Pedro Duarte supports the statements about the desire to “prove” by protesters and commit illegalities.
Constante Pereira asks for the availability of records, service orders, occurrence records and other documents relating to the operation, as well as information on the whereabouts of personal property seized to demonstrators, including those that may have been damaged, and how they will be returned.
“ We cannot divert attention from what is at stake here, which is the guarantee of the right to housing, the alert of these people to a reality that affects too many people in our society, including in the city of Porto. We cannot divert attention from this issue, replacing it with an idea that we have citizens against police, or police against citizens,” Lusa Susana Constante Pereira told.
She believes that the demonstration took place “under the Constitution”.
The movement for housing that has protested in Porto since Saturday, with a camp that began that day, denounced a police charge this morning that caused injuries in 37 of the participants, two of whom were in serious condition.
The participants again installed tents during the night, which were removed by the police, after the mayor of Porto, Pedro Duarte, said on Wednesday that it would be “absolutely relentless with any attempt to place tents” in the square D. João I”.
The movement has six main claims: “below the law of rents; end of evictions; end of purchase of real estate by vulture funds; more public housing; recovery of vacant properties for housing; rent ceilings”.
In today’s note, the movement “extremely denounces the use of extreme, disproportionate and unjustified force during police intervention in the camp, which remained peaceful from the first moment, without ever inciting violence”, considering the “unacceptable” burden and asking for responsibilities.
The PSP has now confirmed an injured police officer and the presence of wounded among the demonstrators, without needing how many, attributing the reason for the intervention to “resistance behaviors”.
Pedro Duarte said today that the PSP was “forced” to act, in the face of the protesters’ attitude, and lamented the incident.
On Wednesday, in a popular assembly, people voted to keep the protest and go back to sleep in tents, expressing the group’s desire to “continue growing and not only in Porto”, appealing to other cities, such as what is already called for Lisbon on Saturday.
On Monday, the PM withdrew about 50 tents that were armed in the square, substantiating the chamber that the camp improperly occupied the public space, leading the protesters to sleep in the open, keeping the protest even without it.